Freight Environment
Fast ReACTION E
veryone has heard about alternative modes of transport offering major benefits in terms of costs, reduced environ-
mental impact and less congestion on roads. There are complexities however: co-ordinating ship, rail, barge and truck movements is a major headache for any- thing other than the simplest combinations. Many opportunities are missed – bear in mind that logistics planners have to
barge for freight movements, while allow- ing freight operators to offer cheaper, more flexible and efficient services to their users.
ROUTE OPTIMISATION
It is not always appreciated just how com- plicated a transport planner’s job actually is. Usually even the transport planner themselves does not realise how many possible options there are. Every consignment could have 10,000s of possible paths, and for hun-
“The ReACTION system will encourage the use of greener modes such as rail and barge for freight movements, while allowing freight operators to offer cheaper, more flexible and efficient services to their users”
cope with hundreds or thousands of freight movements per day, so they can ill afford to spend time hunting for the best solu- tion for every single transport order. e-Freight, a consortium of 30 partners across Europe, supported by the European Commission, has tackled this problem with an innovative approach which will radi- cally change the way multimodal operations are managed. Key to the solution is a real-time automated co-modal transport optimisation system (known as ReAC- TION) developed by MJC2 which uses live data from the e-Freight platform to optimise the multimodal logistics chain. The ReACTION system will encourage the use of greener modes such as rail and
Box clever: e-Freight will radically change the way multimodal operations are managed.
dreds or thousands of containers the number of combinations is astronomically large. The ReACTION system works by intel- ligently hunting through millions of possible solutions to optimise the transport opera- tion. MJC2, the developer of the ReAC- TION system, is a software house that has developed world-leading real-time logis- tics optimisation solutions for high profile transport and distribution operators such as TNT, Kuehne+Nagel, B&Q and Pepsi. ReACTION can receive live data feeds about container movements from the e-Freight platform and uses this information to plan and replan container movements as the situation changes. Using advanced and high innovative scheduling and optimisation algorithms, ReACTION assigns container movements to transport resources follow- ing the necessary business and legislative constraints to create an overall optimised and operable solution which saves money for the transport operator and their customers. ReACTION is designed for large operations and can schedule thousands of movements in seconds due to the efficient use of a multi-layered optimisation architecture.
28 May 2012 Storage Handling Distribution
www.shdlogistics.com REACTION IN ACTION
MJC2 is installing the ReACTION system for China Shipping, one of the World’s largest container shipping companies, to plan their operations in the Port of Valencia. Initial trials suggest that the e-Freight enabled ReACTION system will deliver significant benefits to China Shipping and its customers, as well as to the Port of Valencia. Fewer long-distance truck movements will be required, reducing CO2 footprint and saving money. Dynamic response to real-time events will minimise disruption, improve customer service. Traffic congestion will be reduced around busy freight terminals and operators will have increased visibility of their business. Transport users will benefit from cheaper more flexible services, while port authorities will see increased capacity and through- put. ReACTION is applicable to any major multi-modal freight operation and is expected to make massive reductions in Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions while increasing freight transport efficiency. n
77.5
per cent of EU freight transported by road in 2009
(source: Eurostat)
www.efreightproject.eu
e-Freight, a new Europe-wide consortium of 30 freight companies, has been established to encourage the use of greener modes of transport such as rail and barge for freight movements.
The e-Freight concept enables real-time
information to be exchanged efficiently between logistics customers and logis- tics service providers. This information is interpreted automatically by the ReAC- TION system, which then analyses the impact on the entire logistics operation, re-optimises where necessary, and then passes back updates (again using the e- Freight framework) to relevant stakeholders. Thus not only is the logistics operation optimised in real-time, but information exchange is fast, automated and efficient.
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